The Health Service Executive was warned in November 2019 by the health watchdog HIQA that its computerised infectious disease reporting management system needed to be "fit for purpose" for future demands.
This week, health officials defended the system and said that a fix had now been applied to the system and that it could now handle the case numbers currently being reported."It is essential that there are 'fit for purpose' information systems in place to support the delivery of public health services into the future. CIDR would be one element of this system; it is Ireland's national system for the surveillance of notifiable infectious diseases.
The HIQA report, published four months before the first Covid-19 case was officially reported here, found that: "Strategic development of CIDR is not discussed at any of the higher level groups within the HSE and there is no forum to routinely bring together all CIDR stakeholders to discuss strategic issues, including those relating to information management."
The current vaccine rollout schedule will take a decade; if we turbo charged it, maybe a year or two. There are only two options in the interim & which one we take will affect our lives dramatically. Which is better?